The Baron and His Sweet Raven
by ambiencealikw
Summary: Written for the Finals Round of Ollivanders Challenge for Simplypotterheads for the prompt: A History of Magic. 'Why would her mother send this man after her, of all people'


As soon as she placed the diadem on her head, the regret and horror at what she had done overwhelmed her. Helena Ravenclaw dropped to her knees with a shriek and gripped her head in her hands.

All she had wanted was to be recognised for her own wisdom and her own talents. For someone to see that she was special too, that she was more than just the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. How petty she had been, like a jealous impetuous child.

Truthfully, she had wanted to punish her mother for neglecting her while she mothered a whole school. Taking away the one thing that made her mother so special would mean that she would be forced to leave Hogwarts.

It had been so easy, almost too easy. Her mother had trusted her implicitly and never locked away her most prized possession. It had just been sitting there on the mantle place, taunting her.

_So much for wisdom_, she thought resentfully.

By now her mother would have realised that she was missing and that she had stolen the diadem. What would she do?

Slowly Helena stood up, her mind racing as she stared off into the distance. Her mother would send people after her. If she stayed here they would catch her in moments. She was a gifted witch, but she could not stand against the four founders of Hogwarts and all of the loyal witches and wizards that followed them. She must flee.

_Stupid_, she admonished. _This would be the first place they would look._

It took an agonising amount of time for her to pack the essentials. She expected the door to burst open any second, certain that there would be people on her trail by now.

A knock on her door startled her into immediate apparition. With a pain-filled gasp she appeared in a large field of wheat. A glance around told her that she was close to the village where she had grown up. She had played here as a child, when all that had mattered was fun and nice weather and others to play with.

Even here she was not safe, not anymore. She was known here. Adrenaline pumped through Helena's body, making her feel more alert. She took off towards the nearby forest, weaving though the wheat stalks that reached above her waist.

The diadem allowed her to think in logical, rational steps. If she went to a town or village she would eventually be found. Magic left traces, and she was too well known to rely on anonymity in even the smallest of villages. That left her little choice but to disappear to some remote corner of the world. She had to leave Scotland.

It took a lot of apparition to find a safe way to cross the ocean. Even for a witch of her caliber it was too far to apparate so she was forced to use more mundane means. However, she did use magic to create a strong wind behind the small boat that she had commandeered from two dismayed fisherman. A small amount of guilt made her send it back once she reached the distant shore.

Helena traveled across Europe, sticking to forests and sparsely populated regions. Even that made her paranoid. Every person who saw her and called out only caused her to press on faster. She didn't even pause to obliviate them, too focused on getting away, ignorant to the trail of whispers and speculation that followed her across the continent.

_The woman with the tiara, running through the countryside like the devil himself was after her._

Somewhere in France she stole a horse and her pace picked up significantly after that, though it was difficult to find enough food for herself and her new traveling companion as well.

She did odd jobs at small farms in exchange for food and somewhere safe and dry to sleep, but hanging around anywhere even for a single day made her anxious. As Helena's paranoia grew she resorted to stealing and breaking into hay lofts and barns. By dawn she would be moving once again, her pace relentless.

Eventually she could run no farther.

On the edge of a large, forbidding forest she finally stopped running. A translation spell allowed her to purchase the things she would need to make a new life for herself from a tiny village. She had saved all of her money this whole trip for this exact purpose. It had been agonising at times to steal from good natured muggles but she had known that to get this far only to perish would be pointless.

She left the horse in the village. It was skin and bones. Good meals had been few and far between and that combined with the distance they had traveled had made it look like a walking skeleton. The dirt had been ground so deeply into his coat that she wondered if he would ever be the same chestnut horse she had stolen all those months ago. Magic had a habit of changing things.

When no one was looking, she shrunk down her belongings and placed them in her bag. Though she was careful, she could feel eyes on her back as she left the village behind. It was difficult to just walk away, but she had already drawn too much attention to herself. If she wanted to live here, she must keep a low profile.

Deep in the forest she stopped by a small clearing a few metres away from a gurgling stream. She stood by the stream and looked at her reflection. Too little to eat and too much exertion had stripped all of her beauty away, making her a ghost of what she once was. Like the horse she was practically skeletal. It would take many months to gain all of the weight and health that she had lost.

Still, though the forest looked forbidding from the outside, it was peaceful here in this clearing. It would be lonely, living on her own out here in the middle of nowhere, but it was better than going back and facing the consequences of what she had done.

She resisted the urge to continue wearing the diadem. Now that she no longer needed it to stay one step ahead of her pursuers, it was better to hide it.

Helena hid it in the heart of a huge beech tree a few hundred metres away from her clearing. Even if she were to be captured, no one would ever be able to find it without her. They would not be able to kill her while she was the only living soul who knew where it was hidden.

Now that she was so far away from Scotland, she felt better about using magic. It was unlikely that it would be detected from so far away. She built a small hut by cutting down trees with her wand and lashing them together with vines. Water she cleansed from the stream and food was grown by planting the seeds she had bought from the village and enchanting them to grow much faster than they normally would. Before too long she had a flourishing vegetable garden.

It was a quiet,simple life, and one that she was not used to. Hogwarts was always loud and busy, overflowing with students and teachers and witches and wizards that wanted to see this new school for themselves. Quiet was hard to come by. Out here, in the forest, she was finally able to think.

She had to wonder, after all these months of running she had never felt a true pursuer at her back. Apart from that knock on her door, had anyone truly been looking for her? Did her mother not immediately inform the other founders of the theft and send hunters after her?

It was a sobering realisation that her mother might have loved her enough to hide what she had done.

_Or perhaps she did not care_, Helena thought crossly, though she could not really convince herself that this was the truth of the matter.

The regret that had overwhelmed her when she had placed the diadem on her head had dulled slightly with time, but it still lingered in her mind when she went to sleep at night. Her mother would be worried sick by now. She might not have been the most present or demonstrative of mothers, but Helena had never doubted her love.

Perhaps no one would ever come.

It is human nature to drop the ball a little when you no longer feel like you are in danger, and that was what Helena did. As time went on, her paranoia dulled and she was no longer as careful to hide her presence. The wards that she had placed to keep people away were neglected. More and more she relied on her wand for even the smallest of tasks.

No one was coming so it didn't matter.

The onset of winter brought heavy snowfalls. She transfigured her worn old clothes into something more appropriate for the weather, and turned her thin blanket into a heavy coat to keep off the chill. All of the vegetables had already been harvested and placed under a preservation spell. She could only hope that it would be enough to last her the whole winter.

A blizzard kept her locked in her small hut for a week. When the it finally lifted, she was shivering and weak, magically exhausted from keeping her body warm enough to stave off hypothermia. Even the smallest tasks exhausted her. A pepper-up potion would have rejuvenated her but nothing she had brought with her would enable her to make one.

She fell in and out of nightmares.

_Her mother standing over her with a disgusted sneer on her face. 'Kill her!' She cried. A flash of green blinded her._

_She placed the diadem on her head one last time. The metal dug into her scalp and rivulets of blood streamed down her face, mixing with her tears. The wolves, attracted by the smell of blood, found her easily._

_Once again she sees her mother, only this time she is at her death bed. 'Find her!' She begs. Helena isn't sure which is worse._

When she finally wakes up, there is a man standing over her, trying to coax her into sipping the broth he offers her.

'What?' She whispers, her eyes trying to focus on his face. 'You! She sent you?'

'Aye, she did,' he responded. The Baron put the broth down beside her and looked at her. 'It's good to see you lucid again. I was beginning to think that both of you would be lost.'

Helena frowned as her mind battled with this statement. 'Both?' She asked. He avoided her gaze now, and she studied him with increasing bafflement.

Why would her mother send this man after her, of all people? He was a cruel man, prone to temper tantrums when he did not get his way. Many a woman had fallen under the spell of his fine words and hefty coin purse, only to leave months later with suspicious bruises and broken limbs.

He had always professed to love her. The Baron and his Sweet Raven, he had always proclaimed. They were meant to be, he explained, with a wink and a smile.

She had always refused him. All she had to do if she was feeling weak was visit the infirmary at Hogwarts. The matron there always took in his victims. Some of them worked for her still. Looking at the dull eyes of the woman he had harmed always firmed her resolve.

'Never, never, never,' she had told him. Her mother's protection had kept her from his clutches. He had not been able to claim her under the ever watchful and knowing eye of Rowena Ravenclaw.

There was no such protection now. Perhaps her mother hated her after all, to condemn her to such a fate.

'Both?' She pressed. Had he killed her mother so that he could finally have her? Surely even the Baron would not go so far.

'She is ill,' he explained quietly, 'deathly ill. She sent me to fetch you back home.'

'What did you do to her?' Helena spat at him, weakly trying to push herself into a sitting position. He watched her struggle with an empty expression.

'You always did think the worst of me,' he said with a frown. 'It is as I said. She has worried herself sick over you and now she lies on her deathbed. She sent me because she was desperate to get you home. I offered-'

'Of course you offered,' Helena sneered. Her arms shook. Rage filled her at the thoughts of his hands on her, of his marks on her face and body. Of course he would offer. He had always wanted her, always. And here was his chance. She did not have the strength to fight him off.

'Helena,' he said, but she would not let him finish.

'I told you then and I tell you again. Never, never, never. I will never want you, never love you, never give myself to you.'

His rage last time had been terrifying, but she had had her wand and her strength and she had fought him off, teaching him a lesson she had thought he would never forget. The look on his face now showed that he had not forgotten, and that he had not forgiven.

Behind his back he had been called the Bloody Baron. He pulled out his knife and showed her why. She did not even have the strength to lift her arms and protect herself.

He howled his rage as his knife tore into her flesh, until he was spent and the life was gone from her eyes.

Clinging to the mortal realm, Helena had become a ghost. She haunted him until he claimed his own life with the same knife that had stolen hers.

They both haunted Hogwarts, she as the Grey Lady and he as the Bloody Baron, though she never again allowed their paths to cross. Her mother had died before she had returned. She could never gain the forgiveness that she wanted, so she did not allow the Baron his.

_Never, never, never._

The boy staggered from her form, shivering violently.

He had guessed her true name and had asked for her story. He had been kind, and persistent. He huddled on the ground until his shivers finally passed and he was able to get to his feet. The boy looked back at her.

'Why did you show me everything?' He asked. His voice was pleasant, although shaky. Slight tremors still passed through his body.

Helena had sensed a darkness in him and had shown him the story so he might see where the road to anger and rage would lead him. 'Jealousy and anger destroyed my life. I thought I deserved better than what had been given to me. I sought to be greater than those who had come before me. All I did was alienate myself from those who cared about me,' she explained.

'No one cares about me,' he said. His dismissive tone told her that this was a truth that had been a part of him for a very long time. She would not be able to break through this shield of truth that protected him from making any real connection with the world.

'And if you follow this path,' she warned, 'no one ever will.'

Her warning did not even register in his unconscious mind. Tom Riddle watched as she floated away, but his mind was on the Albanian forest that she had shown him. He was the only person alive who knew the location of the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw. He would find it and wear it.

He would be great.


End file.
